Lee Jae-yong Invites Intel CEO Instead of Partner Qualcomm... Unexpected Temperature Difference?

Relay Meeting with Intel CEO Gelsinger on the 30th Last Month
Only a Talk with Qualcomm CEO Amnon During His Visit
Unexpected Temperature Gap... Many Common Points with IT Industry Veteran Gelsinger
Some Predict Samsung and Qualcomm Accelerating 'Independent Paths'

Cristiano Amon, CEO of Qualcomm / Photo by Qualcomm

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Juhyung, Intern Reporter Song Hyundo] Attention is focused on the recent activities of Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, who has been meeting with heads of American semiconductor companies. In particular, it has been reported that Vice Chairman Lee invited Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger to the Seocho headquarters and held a meeting with him, even sharing dinner together. Meanwhile, he only attended the Korea-US Business Roundtable with US President Joe Biden and Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, who visited Korea last month on the 21st, and had no other schedules, showing a contrast.

While Intel is a rival company competing with Samsung for the top two spots in global semiconductor sales, Qualcomm has been a 'partner' maintaining a close relationship for years, which shows a somewhat unexpected difference in tone. Some speculate that Gelsinger, who has managed businesses across the semiconductor and IT industries, may have more 'points of contact' with Samsung than Amon.

From the 21st to the 30th of last month, over a period of 10 days, Vice Chairman Lee continued meetings with CEOs of American semiconductor companies. Among them, the person he focused on the most was CEO Gelsinger.

According to Samsung, on the 30th of last month, Vice Chairman Lee invited CEO Gelsinger to the Samsung Seocho headquarters for a meeting. Present at the meeting were Samsung's semiconductor heads: Kyung Kye-hyun, head of the DS Division; No Tae-moon, head of the MX Division responsible for smartphones; Lee Jung-bae, head of the Memory Business Division; Choi Si-young, head of the Foundry Business Division; and Park Yong-in, head of the System LSI Business Division. They held a 'relay meeting' covering each business area and reportedly shared dinner together. CEO Gelsinger also showed enthusiasm for visiting Korea on his way back after attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting held in Davos, Switzerland.

Pat Gelsinger Intel CEO / Photo by Intel

Before CEO Gelsinger's visit to Korea, Vice Chairman Lee met with another American semiconductor company CEO, Qualcomm's Amon. Amon, who became Qualcomm's new CEO last year, met Vice Chairman Lee face-to-face for the first time. He visited Korea during President Biden's visit from the 20th to the 22nd of last month and held talks with Vice Chairman Lee and others at the Korea-US Business Roundtable. However, Vice Chairman Lee did not have a separate meeting schedule with CEO Amon like he did with CEO Gelsinger.

Qualcomm is a fabless company designing semiconductors for wireless communication and smartphone application processors (AP). Especially, the AP business has solidified the close relationship between Samsung and Qualcomm. Qualcomm's 'Snapdragon' AP is installed in Samsung Galaxy smartphones, and Samsung has secured chip foundry production orders from Qualcomm, creating a 'win-win' relationship.

In Samsung's first-quarter business report, Qualcomm was proudly listed as one of the 'top five customers.' It seems quite natural that Vice Chairman Lee is building a close relationship with CEO Amon.

Ironically, as a 'rival company,' CEO Gelsinger may have more topics to discuss with Vice Chairman Lee than CEO Amon. Samsung revealed that the agenda for this meeting included ▲next-generation memory semiconductors ▲semiconductor design ▲foundry services.

Intel, led by CEO Gelsinger, operates in similar fields as Samsung, such as semiconductor design, foundry, and memory, and Gelsinger has experience managing several companies before Intel, including Dell EMC (data storage devices) and VMware (software).

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong held a meeting with CEO Gelsinger at Samsung's Seocho office in Seoul on the 30th of last month. / Photo by Yonhap News

On the other hand, CEO Amon joined Qualcomm as an engineer in 1995 and rose to the CEO position. He is a veteran responsible for various semiconductor design tasks from mobile to the Internet of Things (IoT), but has never been directly connected to Samsung's core businesses like memory or foundry. Samsung and Qualcomm have maintained a close relationship strictly based on their positions as foundry and fabless companies, so their common ground is actually very narrow.

Some speculate that the two companies may accelerate their independent paths in the future. Recently, some foreign media such as Taiwan's Taipei Times reported that Qualcomm entrusted the foundry production of Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Plus (+) to TSMC, Samsung's foundry rival.

Alex Katouzian, Qualcomm Senior Vice President, emphasized on the 24th of last month, "A supply chain strategy of purchasing semiconductors from multiple foundry partners has helped solve semiconductor shortages." This is interpreted as a pursuit of a 'diversification' strategy by giving orders to multiple foundry companies rather than relying solely on Samsung.

Samsung also announced a 450 trillion won investment plan on the 25th of last month, setting a goal to release a Galaxy phone-exclusive AP by 2025. Currently, Samsung has maintained a strategy of installing its own AP, Exynos, in mid-to-low-end phones and Snapdragon in premium phones. If Samsung equips all phones with its own AP, the relationship with Qualcomm could shift from a close partnership to another form of rivalry.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.